"What can we do?" murmured the girl. "Do? Rouse these people for one thing; preach _discontent_, a noble discontent." "It will only make them unhappy." "No, it won't; not if you show them the way out. If it does, it's better to be unhappy striving for higher things, like a man, than to be content in a wallow like swine." "But what _is_ the way out?" This was sufficient to set Radbourn upon his hobby-horse. He outlined his plan of action--the abolition of all indirect taxes; the State control of all privileges the private ownership of which interfered with the equal rights of all. He would utterly destroy speculative holdings of the earth. He would have land everywhere brought to its best use, by appropriating all ground rents to the use of the State, etc., etc., to which the girl listened with eager interest, but with only partial comprehension. As they neared the little school-house, a swarm of midgets in pink dresses, pink sun-bonnets, and brown legs, came rushing to meet their teacher, with that peculiar devotion the children in the country develop for a refined teacher. Radbourn helped Lily out into the midst of the eager little scholars, who swarmed upon her like bees on a lump of sugar, till even Radbourn's gravity gave way, and he smiled into her lifted eyes--an unusual smile, that strangely enough stopped the smile on her own lips, filling her face with a wistful shadow, and her breath came hard for a moment, and she trembled. She loved that cold, stern face, oh, so much! and to have him smile was a pleasure that made her heart leap till she suffered a smothering pain. She turned to him to say: "I am very thankful, Mr. Radbourn, for another pleasant ride," adding in a lower tone: "It was a very great pleasure; you always give me so much. I feel stronger and more hopeful." "I'm glad you feel so. I was afraid I was prosy with my land-doctrine." "Oh, no! Indeed no! You have given me a new hope; I am exalted with the thought; I shall try to think it all out and apply it." And so they parted, the children looking on and slyly whispering among themselves. Radbourn looked back after awhile, but the bare little hive had absorbed its little group, and was standing bleak as a tombstone and hot as a furnace on the naked plain in the blazing sun. "America's pitiful boast!" said the young radical, looking back at it. "Only a miserable hint of what it might be." All that forenoon, as Lily faced her little group of barefooted children, she was thinking of Radbourn, of his almost fierce sympathy for these poor, supine farmers, hopeless and in some cases content in their narrow lives. The children almost worshiped the beautiful girl who came to them as a revelation of exquisite neatness and taste,--whose very voice and intonation awed them.